THE mortality rate in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and severe glomerulonephritis (lupus nephritis) is high.^{1 2 3} In 1976 plasmapheresis was proposed as a new approach to interrupting the pathogenetic events in systemic lupus erythematosus.⁴ ...

Polymyositis and dermatomyositis are the most common forms of a group of systemic inflammatory diseases affecting muscle, collectively known as the idiopathic inflammatory myopathies. Patients with these disorders are identified by the presence of ...

SINCE human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) was first described as the etiologic agent of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS),^{1 , 2} the numbers of cells infected in vivo with HIV-1 have been evaluated in patients in various clinical stages ...

VASECTOMY is an effective method of contraception that is widely accepted in both developing and developed countries. However, uncertainty persists about possible long-term adverse effects on health. Antibodies to spermatozoa form in up to two thirds of ...

IN addition to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are major sources of public health concern. Approximately 25 percent of adults infected with HBV become ill with jaundice, and of the 6 to 10 ...

This scanning electron micrograph shows a human spermatozoon contacting a hamster egg (×13,200). The ability ot a patient's spermatozoa to penetrate hamster eggs is used in an assay to measure male fertility. In the assay, a number of hamster eggs are ...

IN the United States, coronary heart disease — principally myocardial infarction — accounts for approximately 1 of every 3 deaths, or nearly 600,000 deaths each year.¹ Almost 50 percent of the deaths attributed to myocardial infarction occur before the ...

Presentation of Case

A 65-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of a large mass that invaded the base of the right side of the skull.

The patient was well until 18 months earlier, when he experienced painless horizontal diplopia. He consulted ...

For any disease there is a limited number of treatments that are known to be effective. When those fail, the physician has to consider alternatives that are either new and unproved or ancient and of uncertain benefit. After enduring a chronic disease and ...

A tongue-in-cheek, not-so-scientific, but revealing paper in this issue of the Journal ¹ documents what many of us have suspected for years: that students are assigned too many books, that they buy fewer books than their teachers think they do, and that ...

To the Editor: Walsh et al. (Sept. 12 issue),* in comparing the outcomes of alcohol abusers who were initially treated in hospitals and then referred to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with the outcomes of those referred directly to AA, conclude that the ...

To the Editor: Pauker and Kopelman should be congratulated on their excellent first article in the new Clinical Problem-Solving series in the Journal (Jan. 2 issue).* This article dramatically demonstrates one of the reasons our nation's health care ...

To the Editor: In 1984, Glenn and associates reported in the Journal their initial experience with a method of pacing the diaphragm in quadriplegia — simultaneous full-time pacing of both hemi-diaphragms.¹ Full-time pacing was made possible by "...

To the Editor: In his discussion of neurosyphilis in Case 32–1991 (Aug. 8 issue),¹ Dr. Gruber explains that because neurosyphilis is treatable and because of its interaction with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), it is important to consider ...

To the Editor: We have recently isolated a fastidious Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain from a patient with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and pulmonary disease consistent with tuberculosis. The patient presented with dyspnea, cough, night ...

To the Editor: Scleroderma renal crisis leads to rapid, usually irreversible, loss of renal function and may be associated with vascular hyperreactivity. We describe a patient with reversible scleroderma renal crisis that was apparently precipitated by ...

To the Editor: Treatment with the lipid-lowering agent probucol has been known to prolong the QT interval of the electrocardiogram¹; however, serious cardiac arrhythmias have rarely been documented. We describe the occurrence of a potentially fatal ...

So you like to read? Good, you came to the right place. USC Class of 1994 Survival Guide ¹

There are some 1350 medical schools on planet earth.² All have the common goal of training, even educating, potential physicians. In view of their geographic, ...

Reading this book has been an interesting experience. I began it filled with a hope that a substantial gap in the knowledge of medicine — how to understand the complex anguish of the sick person embraced by the notion of suffering — would be filled in the ...

This is a collection of 10 essays, 5 with accompanying commentary, covering the major social, ethical, religious, and legal aspects of moral choices at the beginning and end of life. The range of topics is broad and familiar — the autonomy and privacy of ...

The decision to consider someone incompetent is serious, because it disenfranchises the person with respect to important human and civil rights. The courts have a formal process for determining competency, but physicians frequently find themselves in the ...

This book attempts to take seriously the most basic change in the physicianpatient relationship in recent years: the fact that patient care is now situated within and therefore directly affected by large-scale institutions. The ethics of such institutions ...

Frederic W. Hafferty is a sociologist who studied the process of socialization of medical students as a topic for his dissertation. His idea was to follow first-year medical students in their initial exposures to the dead and the dying. He observed ...

The receipt of these books is acknowledged, and this listing must be regarded as sufficient return for the courtesy of the sender. Books that appear to be of particular interest will be reviewed as space permits. The Journal does not publish unsolicited ...

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TOPICS AND ADVANCES IN PEDIATRICS

The program will be offered in Minneapolis, ...